The Flog – The Fabry Log

The Kendrick brothers have their story about how the film War Room originated. I have my own story that I brought to the writing of the novel based on the film.

Our family was living in Illinois and attending a new church. We went through the new members class and met a couple a little older than us originally from China. They told their story, smiling as they spoke of the grace of God in their lives, and asked us all to pray for their son, Christopher.

"He is in prison now," Angela said.

Christopher had informed his parents years earlier that he was gay. He had moved to Atlanta, was in the party scene there, and dealt drugs. He was arrested and incarcerated.

But God had done something miraculous in Christopher's life. He had found a Bible in a prison trash can and began to read. This was just before he discovered he was HIV+. The news hit him hard, but God's Word hit him harder.

Angela's husband, Leon, was a dentist and we began taking our kids to have their teeth cleaned at his practice, which was in an office attached to his home. Years later, I was at their house and Angela asked if I would like to see her prayer room.

I had heard much about how hard Angela prayed for Christopher. She stormed the gates of heaven on her knees. She took me to a bathroom off the second floor of the house. It looked like any other bathroom, except that the shower stall was covered with notes and verses and people's names. The tub was covered by a thin rug.



Angela was so committed to praying for her son that she set apart that bathroom exclusively for prayer. I never forgot that scene, nor what happened to Christopher. When he was released from prison, he attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Today, he teaches the Bible at Moody.

No one is saying that if you find a "War Room" and use it that your children will become Bible teachers or that your marriage will be fully restored or that any of the cause-and-effect types of answers to prayer will happen. But when you bring God into the equations of your life and you allow Him access to your heart, and you surrender yourself and your problems to Him, He will honor that commitment and that trust you put in Him.

I don't know how prayer works. But I know it does. And I believe God is drawing us to Himself in times of our desperate need of Him. And I'm grateful for those who are willing to surrender and display that with their lives.